Deck.ly is a service that allows users to Tweet at lengths greater than 140 characters.

Dodsworth explains the move:

"From day one [of Tweetdeck], it was one of the things almost everyone was screaming about ... I've been very protective of the fact that [140 characters] is a platform limitation of the services we sit on top of and we have to have an element of respect for that. Going around that core tenet of Twitter could be a sensitive move. We don't know how they feel about it. But we are tailoring to an audience that wants functionality the general user of Twitter doesn't care about."

Twitter's 140 characters feels silly at this point. It was originally used because Twitter was a mobile, SMS-based service. Now it's more web based, so more characters should be allowed. And if it's something users want, then all the better.

Granted, without the character limitation, it's more like Tumblr, Facebook, or something else. And we've seen other tweet lengtheners in the past that haven't mattered. The difference here: Tweetdeck has millions of users, so this could gain some traction.

All posts on Deck.ly will be hosted by Tweetdeck. For Tweetdeck users, they will just see the longer tweet. For people on other Twitter platforms, they see a link to Deck.ly which Dodsworth hopes will drive more people to Tweetdeck applications.

We emailed Dodsworth about the new feature. He says it adds value to Twitter, and he thinks new features like this will help make TweetDeck, "the defacto Hub application."

Smart move, since, as he tells the FT, "We are competing with Twitter on a daily basis ... We are fighting for the people that use the same service. Our users are a higher level and they want more - those are people that Twitter doesn't want to compete for."